Natural gas can be found in abundance throughout the United States, and is often used for heating, cooking, and electrical power generation. The primary component in natural gas is methane, an energy-rich gas that is generally incompatible with our current transportation infrastructure. In order to be used as a liquid transportation fuel, methane must be converted from a gas to a liquid. No commercially-viable biological approaches are presently available that can convert methane to a liquid fuel through an energy-efficient and environmentally sound process. Although conversion can currently be done chemically, this requires costly and energy-intensive processes that are only feasible at large scales. As a result, small and remote sources of methane cannot be leveraged to create cost-effective transportation fuels. ARPA-E's REMOTE program will use microorganisms as "biocatalysts" to address the challenge of small-scale gas-to-liquid conversion. New biological conversion technologies offer the potential for conversion processes feasible at small scales so that small, remote sources of methane can be accessed. Furthermore, these processes would have a small carbon footprint as to provide a clear environmental advantage over traditional fuels.